Pancho Villa

Lore & Background

Villa told conflicting stories about his early life. According to most sources, he was born José Doroteo Arango Arámbula on 5 June 1878, the oldest of five children, and grew up on a hacienda in Durango. He quit school after his father died, working as a sharecropper, muleskinner, butcher, bricklayer, and foreman. At age 16, according to his dictated memoirs, he moved to Chihuahua, then returned to Durango to track down and shoot a hacienda owner who had raped his sister, afterward fleeing as a thief. He was arrested in 1898 for gun and mule theft, and in 1902 was forcibly inducted into the Federal Army, later deserting. By 1903, after killing an army officer, he adopted the name Francisco "Pancho" Villa.

Villa joined the armed rebellion called for by Francisco Madero in 1910 to oust President Porfirio Díaz. He captured a hacienda, a train of Federal Army soldiers, and several towns, and met Madero in March 1911. Madero promoted him to colonel. Villa and Pascual Orozco captured Ciudad Juárez in 1911, leading to Díaz's resignation. After Madero's presidency, Villa opposed the coup by Victoriano Huerta in 1913, joining the Constitutionalist Army under Venustiano Carranza. After Huerta's defeat, Villa broke with Carranza, dominated a meeting of revolutionary generals, and allied with Emiliano Zapata. He served as provisional governor of Chihuahua from 1913 to 1914.

Civil war broke out in late 1914 when Carranza challenged Villa. Villa was decisively defeated by Álvaro Obregón in summer 1915, and the U.S. aided Carranza directly against Villa. Angered, Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916 to goad the U.S. into invading Mexico; despite superior technology, the U.S. failed to capture him. After Carranza was ousted in 1920, Villa negotiated an amnesty and retired to a landed estate. He was assassinated in 1923.

Reader's Guide

Pancho Villa was one of the most prominent figures of the Mexican Revolution, though his faction did not prevail. At the height of his power in late 1914 and early 1915, the U.S. considered recognizing him as Mexico's legitimate president. In Mexico, he is generally regarded as a hero who stood up to the United States, while some American media outlets describe him as a villain and murderer. Villa helped fashion his own image as an internationally known revolutionary hero, starring as himself in Hollywood films and giving interviews to foreign journalists, most notably John Reed. After his death, he was excluded from the official pantheon of revolutionary heroes until the Sonoran generals Obregón and Calles were gone from the political stage. This exclusion may have contributed to his continued popular acclaim. He was celebrated during the Revolution and long afterward by corridos, films, and novels. In 1976, his remains were reburied in the Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City in a huge public ceremony. His legacy remains contested, but his role as a key figure in the Revolution is undisputed.

Did You Know?

• Villa starred as himself in Hollywood films and gave interviews to foreign journalists, notably John Reed.
• He was known to his friends as La Cucaracha ('the cockroach').